Buddhas, Deals, and Lasers Galore

Today just us girls went to see the 10,000 Buddhas Monastery in Sha Tin. On the metro there, we were all skeptical of how many Buddha’s were really there. Surely not 10,000 we thought. We walked through Pai Tau Tsuen and then up, up, up the 400 something steps leading to the grounds. The monastery has five temples, two pavilions, and a nine-storey pagoda. At first there were gold Buddha’s lining the walk up. Every one was different, but they all had bright red lips. The majorities were skinny, and did not look that much like what I usually picture Buddha’s looking like. After the long hot hike up we finally get to the main part. There are Buddha’s on elephants and tigers, colorful Buddha’s, Buddha’s everywhere! We then went into the temple, and to our amazement the walls had tiny little Buddha’s covering them with little lights on each. Every column even had Buddha’s on them it seemed like there were more than 10,000 just in there. We then left in search of more Buddha’s.

Walking up another hill there were more Buddha’s lining it. About three fourths of the way up there stared to be female Buddha’s. At the next level place you could see huge buildings in the background and peaceful looking female Buddha’s right in front of you. There was also a huge, old house that was very pretty. We kept walking and found more Buddha’s on the hillside. Each one was with a different animal. There was another very colorful temple with a couple big Buddha’s in it. We walked back down to the main temple, got some sodas, and then decided to descend going a different route. This was had even more gold Buddha’s.

We went to central Hong Kong to go to the ladies market after that. It is comprised of three streets: Fa Yuen Street, Tung Choi Street, and Sa Yeung Choi Street. I am going to get home never want to buy anything! Everything is so cheap here! You can get designer jeans for about thirty dollars U.S. And soso much more! They really have everything at these markets, and most of it is really cute. I am going to need to buy another suitcase, good thing they are cheap too. By now I realized that you can in fact haggle prices down. I had no idea before and would by things for the first price they said. Now I can usually get things to about half of the original price.

After doing some shopping there we met up with Frank for dinner. We went to Japanese cuisine, because the restaurant they originally wanted to go to had closed. It was really good! The only thing I didn’t like that I tried was a soft shell crab hand roll. I though it would be really good, but when I took a bite it was gross, and the texture was very gritty. When I told Carrie and Frank this they said it was probably the brain, but then changed their minds. They told me the brain is usually mushy so it was probably the organs. YUCK. I am not sure if they were joking or not but still it really freaked me out.

After dinner we got ice cream to eat during the light show. I tried durian ice cream just to see what it would taste like. Frank always jokes saying that the guy who first ate the fruit must have been the hungriest man in the world. It is covered in spikes, and once you get past that the smell hits you. It really smells disgusting and then you have to get through the icky gooey part to the fruit. It smells soo bad! Anyways I didn’t like it because I could taste the smell. Instead of going to The Peak to watch the light show we watched it from the top level of the parking garage. It was a great view, even though the light show isn’t all the great. The cool thing about it is that it is so unique. What other city would collaborate with all the big buildings to put on a light show every night at eight o’clock for 20 minutes? They have a cheesy introduction to it and music. The girls loved it though!

Museum Day

While Carrie did her paddling and studying today Frank, Catherine, Alex, and me went to TST. We walked through Chun King Mansion which is basically a hotel for people who cannot afford more than about $20 Hong Kong dollars a night. This is about $2.58 U.S. for a bed and bathroom. It is typically for people form 3rd world countries. The first floor has some amazing ethnic food and some grocery stores too. The majority downstairs are people trying to sell you things in stands. Frank had me try some food from a stand and it was very fried, greasy, and tasty.

After we left there the girls were starving so we went to try and find some place to eat. They wanted sushi at this place called sushi one which didn’t open until 12:30. So we had to go find something to do for 45 minutes. While walking over to the history museum to buy are tickets we spotted the science museum and a poster advertising a dinosaur display. Alex loves dinosaurs so we decided to go look around there for a while. There was only one dinosaur right when you walked in and it wasn’t the best, but the rest of the museum was really interesting.

There was this whole thing about how cars work, something my dad has tried to explain to me multiple times, and the visual model helped me to understand much better. There were also tons of things about your weight, calculating how long it would take you to burn off what you eat, and how much you are over eating. They had this thing showing how much you eat in a year and the scale of what your weight should be. This surprised me since no one in Hong Kong needs this; all of them are tiny.

On the next story of the museum they had a huge section of how to use energy efficiently, green house gasses, ect. This surprised me even more considering china puts out so much pollution! They do not recycle at all, and there is trash thrown everywhere on hillsides and places like that. Also most of their fruit and vegetables are wrapped separately in plastic. The air is thick with pollution and none of them seem to care one bit. It was good that they have the display in the museum though; hopefully it will inspire people to live more greenly. They also had a hall full of mirrors that were really fun, and scientific games. We then went to sushi and then went to the history museum. It was pretty interesting also.

Easter Sunday

Today I decided to make breakfast for the family. After all, it is Easter and they never have sit down breakfasts here. Most Saturday or Sunday mornings my dad makes a big breakfast and I thought it would be a fun thing to do. So I made a huge fruit salad and prepared everything for pan fried potatoes and omelets. Since I am not the best at making potatoes and omelets I had Frank do that part while I watched. It ended up being really good.

Later on we went on a walk with the dogs. Along the way there were tons of brides and grooms having photo shoots. They would be in the ugliest places with cow pies all around them, or underneath a concrete bridge in gravel. The brides would be wearing flick flops or tennis shoes. It wasn’t even their wedding days! The whole thing seems pretty ridiculous to me, but it was sure fun watching. All of the city dwellers who go out to hike and spent the weekend in the country are terrified of dogs. While walking by them with our two big dogs they would step off the path and pick up their children. It was pretty funny.

Along the trails there are all of these abandoned houses from the 70’s. When Hong Kong was run by communists many people who lived there were Christian, They would just pick up and leave their home and belongings. I think that’s why they left but I don’t exactly remember… All of the houses are falling down, because they need constant repair with all of the rain here. But they are really beautiful with all of the trees and vines taking over. We walked to a secluded bay and let the dogs play before we walked home. On the way we walked through this museum. It was huge house with all of the things that they used to have in them. It was really cool and would be a great house to remodel and live in.

For Easter dinner we had the best asparagus, lamb, potatoes, squash, and cake. Oh and we had creaser salad with anchovies, that only Frank ate. While we made dinner we had a very long argument about how disgusting anchovies are. I told him that I would never eat meat form a can. Catherine would back me up repeating everything I said with much enthusiasm. It was hilarious. After dinner frank and I sat at the table and had a very long conversation about life before we all walked up to watch a movie. We only got through about half of it before everyone was falling asleep. I forget the name of the movie. It was Italian and about a guy named Alfredo, his movie theater, and this boy.

Explorations and Navigations

While Frank did his routine sixteen mile walk and Carrie and the girls went to dragon boating I went to town. Instead of walking the four miles which was my original plan, I took the minibus. It was busy in Sai Kung today, and I didn’t really know what to do with myself. So I just waked around looking in all of the stores until I found a Starbucks. I took my homework with me, so I sat down outside and went to work. One of me assignments was to sit and write what is around you for a half hour. It was so funny, Chinese people have no problem staring at you and talking about you while you are right there. It makes me very uncomfortable! I would be writing and old ladies and men would walk by very slowly and look at what I was writing and look at me. I would glare back but it didn’t faze them one bit.

While I was there I say the French man. I can never remember his name, but his accent was so think I asked him to repeat himself ever time he spoke. A while later this couple sat down at the table next to me with the tiniest dog I have ever seen. A couple people who worked at Starbucks cleared the table off so that the little dog could sit on it and just stood watching the tiny dog. Everyone who walked by would coo and ask if it was real. Kind of weird to me, but I have to admit the dog was pretty cute.

After that I just walked around some more. I would be walking and all of a sudden realized I had been in the exact same place minutes before. The places I wanted to go back to I could not find. By that time I had to pee really badly, for my venti tea. So I waited in this huge line for the public bathroom and then realized that all of the toilets were the traditional Chinese style ones. I practically ran out while everyone in line looked at me like I was crazy. I am just not the squatting type.

I then stumbled into Alex, she said that she had been searching for her mom and couldn’t find her anywhere. I told her that her best bet was to stay just where she was and wait, or go to the park where I remembered Carrie telling the girls to meet a couple days earlier. She wouldn’t listen to me of course and just biked off. I tried to follow her but she disappeared. So I called her mom on my 2 something a minute phone and told her I had just seen Alex. Carrie was so frustrated and had been looking for her for an hour and a half. She thought that Alex would come back to the 7 eleven so Catherine, Carrie and me waited around there for a while. When that didn’t work, I waited with the car while they went looking for Alex. Finally, all three of them came back, and Alex walks past me and says “See I found her.” This made me laugh since if she had only waited for 3 more minutes at the 7 eleven like I had said she would have found Carrie 45 minutes earlier.

Later that night we met Carrie’s paddle boating friends and their husbands at a Gaisi. There is a wet market on the first floor with fish, meat, and vegetables. They have exercise places, shopping and things like that on the other floors. On the top floor is a food court of sorts. It isn’t pretty, but the food is amazing. They used to be on the streets with cock roaches and rats running around your feet every once and a while. Yuck... but now the health and sanitary codes are so strict that they have moved or shut down almost all of them off the streets. We had Thai food there and I had a mango smoothie. They were amazing!

Gary, one of there close friends, who is native to Hong Kong, told me the manners of the table. He said “Stop worrying about making a mess! The bigger a mess you make means the more you enjoyed it here!” This is so different from our culture it was sort of hard for me to get used to, but it makes eating a whole lot more fun. You just through stuff on the table and don’t worry about anything! Mandy, Gary’s girlfriend sat on one side of me and had me try a coconut. It was great too, definitely the best I have ever had. Everyone there was really nice and they had the people working bring me out forks, but I didn’t even use one once. The chop sticks here are rounded and so hard for me to use! We took a taxi home and everyone was wiped.

The Peak

Frank left the car in Central after hanging out with his friend last night, so we had to take buses and the metro to Hong Kong Island. Frank hates public transportation, but I thought it was fun and Carries likes it too. We had the mini bus to ourselves on the way; they seat 16, to Sai Kung. Then we took another mini bus, which was full, to the metro. The train was packed! It wasn’t nearly as bad as Japan though, it just was that no one moved over for you. So the far side had tons of room but right beside the doors was uncomfortable.

Upon arriving in central we went to this high end store that Carrie and Frank’s extremely rich neighbor owns. I forgot his name, but he is a journalist and owns a lot of stores here in Hong Kong. He fly’s people by helicopter to his house, and has had lots of famous people come. All of the clothes there were amazing. The style is kind of modern with heavy Chinese influence. You can have a dress made out of beautiful silks for about $1000+ dollars US.

We had a very tradition lunch and then walked through an outdoor market. The government is tying to get rid of the market because of sanitary issues, but some of the vendors families have been selling there for about a hundred years. We had desert at this little shop that the old governor (emperor?) used to love. There were pictures everywhere of him eating sweets. It was pretty good; they were just pastries with egg yolk filling. They tasted too much like for me, but I guess they are really popular.

After we went to a store named G O D. it isn’t said like “God” and means something different. They have all these things that say “DELAY NO MORE”. In Cantonese, it means “fuck you” or something. But they have some great stuff there and I got some great gifts. Much to Frank’s annoyance, we stopped at the Man Mo Temple. Dating back to the 1840’s it is a big tourist attraction. Our eyes watered from all of the giant sand wood incense spirals hanging form the ceiling. It takes them a couple weeks to burn though. The temple was dedicated to Man, the god of literature, and Mo, the god of war.

Next, we went through a market selling lots of bracelets and trinkets, posters and Buddha’s, and other things like that. I got this little old lady to cut the price in half. The people around me where laughing but I was excited about it, thinking I was tricky for telling her I only had forty dollars. Next we went and got the car because the line for the tram was huge. There is a huge shopping center. We went to the very top and looked down on the city. Everyone got some American candy, they were all overjoyed because it is hard to find here. Then we went to the peak restaurant or café, something like that. It was very neat, the whole day was!

Surfing

While Frank had meetings, Carrie, Catherine, Alex, and I went to the beach. First, we had to take a bus to pier and then take a boat. Then there was a huge mountain to walk up and down the other side. I am extremely out of shape so you can imagine how difficult it was for me. There is a stone path carving up the mountain, with cow pies everywhere, but some great views. The forests here are so alive and lush. All of the bugs were so noisy! The beach and village we went to had no road access. Can you imagine living there?! I preferred the walk up, because my legs were shaking so badly going down the steep decline. Once we reach the end of the mountain, we entered Tai Long Wan Village.
In the village there were little straggly homeless dogs everywhere. For some reason no one ever thinks to neuter their animals and so there are tons of dogs. The sad thing, the females get pregnant every time they are in heat and usually die really young.

We had to walk a ways farther to the beach, Ham Tin Wan. The surfing teacher, Tod, was from Orange County, blond, short, and talked like a surfer dude. He was really nice and great with the girls. He taught us what to do and then took us out on tiny waves in three feet of water. When a wave came he’d tell you to paddle and then push you, so all you really have to do was stand up. I could get as far as my knees, but the girls could get up onto their feet. I tried on his normal board which was much easier; I think the waves just weren’t big enough for me.

I gave up after a couple of tries and went on a walk after we had lunch to take pictures. It still just amazes me the Chinese will just abandon their houses and sometimes burn them. I walked back behind all of the new houses were I was convinced that I’d probably get killed by a python and never be found. There are all of these stone walls with vines growing and houses with junk in them. When I got back to the beach the water was freezing so I just hung out until the girls were done surfing. The walk back was pretty strenuous, it must have been hell for Catherine and Alex after surfing and playing all day! Again the walk down was much harder. Exhausted from the day we took a taxi home and watched Monsters vs. Aliens before going to bed.

Shopping

Today, Carrie, Alex and I dropped just Catherine off at her friends, much to Alex’s disappointment and resentment. After trying to get my visa for china we went to Stanley Market. When we got there all of us were hungry so we went to a restaurant right on the beach. I had some amazing French onion soup while people watching. It’s in places like that when you can’t believe that you are in Hong Kong. It is very much just white people and very westernized. Stanley was the largest settlement on Hong Kong Island before the British took over. It is very modern and on the southeast coast.

After eating we went through the market, which is a ton on tiny broken down stalls. But they have some good deals, cute clothes, and great souvenirs and gifts. We spent a good part of the day there going from beginning to end and then turning around and going back. I got some great gifts and some much need clothes. I packed for cold weathered Japan not the heat of Hong Kong! Shopping was great, and when we were done we sat down and had some pastries and coffee. I have had so much caffeine every day here, between lots of tea, coffee and red bull! Even with all of that, by 9 o’clock I am dead.

On our way home the roads where so narrow I felt like my mom. I was terrified and tried to stifle my gasps every time we turned a corner or a bus went zooming by. There was this one bridge that was two lanes but it should have been one, it was tiny! These double-decker buses just race down these tiny, very windy roads. So you have speeding traffic on one side of you and a bumpy rock wall on the other. UGH! At home we had some Japanese soup, just like the soup I had on my second night in Japan, but better!